


Tick, tock, tick, tock, the mouse ran up the clock.

by dreaminghour



Series: Shuffle Fics [7]
Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, There's a bomb, its the final countdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreaminghour/pseuds/dreaminghour
Summary: "Hickory dickory dock… Alice did not need to turn back the clock or any such nonsense. She merely had a queer feeling she wasn’t the same person she’d been yesterday."
Relationships: Beth Kane | Alice & Kate Kane, Beth Kane | Alice & Mouse
Series: Shuffle Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429156
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Tick, tock, tick, tock, the mouse ran up the clock.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Control" - Halsey

Tick, tock, tick, tock, the mouse ran up the clock.

Once upon a time she’d shrunk down and met Mouse in a pool of tears, but he might yet turn out to be a figment of a traumatic imagination, treading water with no one. Not real at all.

Hickory dickory dock… Alice did not need to turn back the clock or any such nonsense. She merely had a queer feeling she wasn’t the same person she’d been yesterday.

“ _ Was _ I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah,  _ that’s _ the great puzzle!”

Sweat was sliding into her eyes. This was terribly frustrating. Why did anyone turn to her for help, let alone her sister? This same little sister of hers who had, in the after-time, become herself a grown woman and— Her sister? No, not  _ her  _ sister. Kate was Beth’s sister. Alice wasn’t Beth anymore. Elizabeth, off-with-her-head — no, no she had drowned.

Hickory, dickory. Who's there?

“The mouse who ran up the clock.”

A single drop fell off her nose.

Run down, little Mouse. It’s about to strike one!

Knock, knock. Who’s there?

“Not you, Beth, not anymore.”

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Maybe Mouse was a bandaid on a wound, a balm for a virus. Did it matter? He had run the clock down.

Her eyes felt swollen, her head too heavy for her neck.

What was that?

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse had built a bomb.

Alice gritted her teeth — “O Mouse, when had you become such a pest?” — and looked back at her hands, nails chipped, and stopped the gentle saw-saw of the wire with her knife. Her hands quivered from the force, the reinforced wire no closer to breaking.

Tick, tock. Who dares?

“Well, Beth is dead already anyway.”

She yanked, hard.


End file.
